But life is the present and the future, not the past.

My rating of the book is based on the quality of Morning Star but also how it completes the Red Rising trilogy. Each installment in this series is excellent and actions from previous books are noted and have repercussions in the finale. I find that a trilogy may have a stumble in quality along the line, but each book for Red Rising was excellent and this five star rating is based on the sum of its parts.

I faulted the first book for having too narrow of a scope. Yet it did an excellent job of laying the foundation for friendships and beliefs. The decisions made then have consequences now and they feel that much more significant because they were set in motion at the first book. The friendships and betrayals from the Institute were more significant than I expected and the students weren't able to brush off what happened as just being a part of a simple game.

I feel like a prisoner who spent his whole life digging through the wall, only to break through and find he's dug into another cell. Except there will always be another cell. And another. And another.

There was a pleasant amount of twists and turns but I also thought to myself "how is that person still alive?!", and at times it felt slightly comical. Morning Star had some wonderful emotional moments but if characters had a true death there may have been more of an impact. Even though I was trying to predict the next deception I wasn't really. To use a quote from The Prestige: "You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled." and each time I was and pleased for the feint.

Morning Star continues to juggle action and plot around topics of social rights, prejudices and racism. This put me on my own journey as I struggled with the main concept of the stories: can people change.

We all have nature and nurture to shape us. She can watch other people's opinions when she has opinions of her own, and no sooner. We're not digital creatures. We're flesh and blood. Better she learns that before the world finds her.

You wanted to believe that a character would redeem themselves and look beyond Color, but at the same time you were also rooting for them to remain evil monsters and abandon friendships and trust. Pierce Brown had to walk a fine line to satisfy both moods and he did an excellent job.

Government is never the solution, but it is almost always the problem.

The inter planetary setting was a great location but with planets and moons terraformed and populated there wasn't much diversity between locations. I realize that science and technology advanced to a point where our current solar system is unrecognizable but it would have been great if orbital mechanics were accounted for in strategies. However, when you fly a "MoonBreaker" or a ship 7KM in length then the minutia of gravity isn't something you need to account for.

Forget a man's name and he'll forgive you. Remember it, and he'll defend you forever.

I can understand how some readers may find the caste system and racism a bit heavy handed at times but it's wrapped around a really fun and engaging story. I am glad to have stumbled across this series and I will read the second trilogy once it's completed.

In the afterword Pierce Brown wrote about his writing process for Morning Star and found this quote about Darrow to be insightful as the focus of the story did seem to shift in this book.

I began to understand that Darrow wasn't the focus anymore. It was the people around him. It was his family, his friends, his loves, the voices...

I had more quote highlights than usual in this book and when looking back at them now they are as applicable in today's world as they are in Darrow's but the most striking and significant would be this one:

We must save ourselves from ourselves before the inheritance of humanity is ash.